


Ice & Water

by Akifall



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Happy Ending, Implied Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister, Love Confessions, Marriage, Post-Season/Series 08, Season/Series 07 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-24 19:47:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12019734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akifall/pseuds/Akifall
Summary: If Cersei was Ice,Brienne was Water.After the fight of the dead is over, Jaime has to decide where his loyalty really lies.





	Ice & Water

The tavern was rowdy.

By the closed off window, Three men sat in winterfurs clapping on the table as the youngest male downed a pint of ale in one hit. 

The boy’s cheeks were rosy red and he grinned feverishly at his companions. 

Bronn reached up and pulled a drunken Pod down to his seat. He cheered louder than Tyrion, ruffling his friends black hair with a fond grin. 

“Careful! Can’t hav lil’ Pod pass out before he’s got his fingers wet.” He chuckled.  
Pod’s face darkened furthur at Bronn’s crude comment and the rest of the company erupted into laughter. 

Tyrion was perhaps the most knowledgeable drinker and the piss poor shit that Winterfell served as alcohol barely affected him. 

Still he was having a wonderful time in the company of his old friends. So different was it from the stern rules of the Lords and Ladies; here he could be alive. 

They had yet to talk about the future; the conversation would probably never arise. 

Bronn had insisted that his Alliance lay with whoever could promise him a castle; and yet he seemed oddly inclined to help Jaime Lannister without so much as a reward. 

Pod on the other hand accompanied the Lady of Tarth, and despite Tyrion reinstating his employment to him, Pod seemed to want to stay with Brienne despite that. 

Tyrion didn’t want to see his friends on the opposite sides of the battlefield. 

The dead had been wiped clean and while the celebrations went deep into the nights, the question of loyalty was quickly approaching. 

Jaime was to travel back to Kings Landing, granted safe passage as a reward for his time against the dead. 

He’d saved so many with his battle strategies, limiting the causality’s of the war and even at one point threw himself against a white walker to stop it from dealing a punishing blow to Jon Snow. 

Tyrion was so relieved to see his brother tiredly limp into Winterfell.  
He loved Jaime.

Despite the confliction of the past, he did love him.

But Jaime was loyal to Cersei.  
-  
Later that night saw Pod almost choking on his own vomit.

Brienne was grumbling as she was awoken by his gagging, and quickly she turned him on his side so he could expel the contents of his stomach.  
He mumbled in his sleep and Brienne threw her furs over him after finding him much too cold to her liking. 

He opened one beady eye and stared back at her tiredly. 

“Thank you m’lady.” He said before falling back to sleep. 

Brienne sat in the cold watching her squire for a moment.

Pod was a kind soul, how he came into the service of Tyrion Lannister still baffled her to this day. It still bemused her that he lacked any real squiring skills before he met her, he didn’t even know how to skin a rabbit back then. 

He’d come so far.

Brienne gave Pod a solid pat before climbing to her feet and stretching herself, her bones clicking before she relaxed again. 

She’d come so far. 

Brienne felt uneasy as she remembered Renly, she remembered the idea of thinking herself in love with him. 

He’d been kind.

Kindness didn’t come easily to someone like Brienne back then.

When she cut Stannis down, she finally allowed herself to let go of Renly; a promise more to her former self than to the dead would-be king. 

Love, real love, stuck her with the most unobtainable of all people. 

Jaime Lannister. 

Jaime was one of the most desired people in all the Seven Kingdoms and also one of the most despised.  
He was cruel to her. Like so many people had been, jested at her looks and body.  
It was that day when she killed the Stark men that had shifted his view on her. 

Before he lost his hand, before he wanted to die in the mud.  
She buried the women strung up by the foul men as though they were people. 

Which they were  
Just as she and Jaime were people. 

Because alliance didn’t matter.  
Life mattered.  
-  
Jaime stared from the broken tower.  
He wondered what Bran’s last thought was before hitting the ground. 

Jaime imagined that back then, he and his sister probably found some amusement from the expression found upon Bran’s final look.  
Jaime felt sick even standing here. 

Part of him demanded that he pay in due time for that crime, while another part wanted him to move on from the ghost of his former self. 

He looked up at the falling snow and found himself reaching out and catching a few flakes in his hand.  
He wondered if Cersei regretted what they did then. 

The flakes melted in his hand.  
Probably not.

A pool of water sat in the middle of his palm now.  
His sister was so cold. 

An ice queen that destroyed everything that came her way; she was just as bad as the dead.  
Snow was considered beautiful until soaked in piss or blood or mud or shit. 

If his sister was ice, Brienne by right should be water.  
He didn’t even care that he thought of her now.  
Jaime had tried so hard not to fall for something that would always slip through his grasp.  
He chuckled and shook his head.

Who was he fooling, he begun drowning in her since seeing her in the baths.  
He could live without the ice, but water?

Water was something else entirely. 

Water was life.

By chance he noticed Brienne walking directly past the tower towards the training grounds.

He watched her silently for a moment before quickly beginning his descent down the tower. 

 

-

Brienne was training with her blade when Jaime approached her, she was absent of her furs and this instantly concerned Jamie. 

She turned to him as he begun to remove his own furs, her eyes widening as he offered it to her without a word.

“I’m fine honestly.” Brienne mumbled. Jaime sighed and threw it on her anyway. 

“Ser Jaime- I’m-“He leaned into her space, cupping her face in his cold hands not that she cared. 

“Just Jamie.” He said, bumping their foreheads together. 

“Brienne, I have a confession to make.” Brienne looked concerned as Jaime closed his eyes as though in pain, she brought her free hand to his shoulder. 

“Are you okay?” She asked. Jaime opened his eyes at her contact.

“I’m in love with you.” He told her bluntly. 

A silence hung between them as Brienne’s grip loosened of her sword.  
Oathkeeper fell in the snow but neither of them made a move to pick it up. 

“What?” Brienne mumbled. Jaime laughed nervously.

“I love you.” He repeated more firmly. 

She shook her head in disbelief pulling away from him. 

“You jest surely Ser.” She muttered bitterly. 

His eyes widened before narrowing and then he was pulling her towards him, encasing her within his hold.  
“Brienne, Brienne of Tarth. Brienne of the Summer Isles, or Evenhall, Daughter of Selwyn Tarth. I love you.” He told her firmly. He turned Brienne in his hold and brought their heads together again, tears ran down her scarred face and he kissed them away as gently as he could. 

Every precious part of her. 

He treasured every moment he could dance within her rain.  
-

The time to discuss loyalty came with a raven.  
Cersei demanded that her brother return to Kings Landing 

Tyrion sat across from his brother as he read the parchment out loud. Jamie read the endearing things his sister spoke of their supposed future, and what they would do to the bodies of their enemies.

The two brothers sat in silence for a moment before they burst into shared laughter. 

“To think she believed she was gaining Elephants of all things.” Jamie wheezed 

“The first boat sunk before it could exit the port.” Tyrion chuckled and Jamie couldn’t stop another wave of giggles. 

Brienne bid Pod and Bronn farewell before entering the tent, rolling her eyes as the two brothers laughed.  
“Lady Brienne. Join us.” Tyrion begged happily. 

Jamie’s gaze softened as his wife took a seat by her brother but refused the offered wine. 

“I’m glad you two are having fun. The news is quite late though isn’t it?” She said examining the yellow parchment. 

“Several months at the very least.” Jamie agreed shuffling closer to his wife and giving her a quick kiss.  
Tyrion smiled happily as the knights bumped their noses together. 

“Speaking of late? Shall we tell my brother the news?” Jamie mumbled. Brienne flushed nervously as she turned to her curious brother in law. Jamie held onto her hand and tightened his grip.

“You’re going to be an uncle again.” Jamie said proudly.  
Tyrion’s eyes widened.  
-

On the long trip home to Tarth, Brienne stared out at the ocean the water clearing of ice and dirt as it gave way to something much purer. 

She hadn’t been home since it all began. 

Jamie watched as her eyes lit with excitement and longing, her hand resting protectively across her middle.  
He wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else.

-

Back at Winterfell

The swords that had once been Oathkeeper and Widow’s Wail were forged together as one again. 

Ice sat in the crypts alongside the faded memory of Ned Stark.  
Every Oath had been kept, no widow had been made  
And ice

well

As Jaime would say ‘Ice’ was just a memory of the past.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still going after like what seems like a million fanfics about these two 
> 
> I'm gonna have to slow down or there will at at least a thousand before series 8 airs T_T


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